I try to avoid posting too much science-fiction material here. The internet’s not short of places for that and given how much there is, the non-fiction posts would be drowned out. But occasionally there are items which are either extra interesting or have the potential to be more influential than usual.
A new TV show from US channel HBO at least fulfils the latter criteria, simply by being a nearish-future scenario on mainstream television. Hollywood Reporter has a piece on Americatown:
Set 25-40 years into the future when the precipitous decline of the US leads to a mass exodus of its citizens, Americatown takes place in a cluster of newly arrived American immigrants in a big foreign city.
“By presenting Americans as immigrants in the near future, as both underdog and hero in the drama of global dislocation, we substitute a mirror for the rancor that informs much of the partisan debates on immigration,” [writer Bradford] Winters said.
…
In his research for Americatown, Winters had explored possible nightmare scenarios that could bring the US to a collapse decades down the road, like the price of oil skyrocketing and natural disasters reaching catastrophic proportions. Then suddenly oil hovered near $150 a barrel this summer, floods hit the Midwest and the South and Wall Street crashed under the weight of the mortgage crisis.
If we were looking for precedents for this kind of thing I guess we could look at two ares. First, close-knit communities of other kinds of ex-pats/immigrants, such as Chinatown, which Hollywood Reporter cites.
Second would be the little bits of America exported to the foreign camps of US troops. The military has become experienced at creating enclaves of home comforts in the most hospitable conditions. For example, in 2006 the Telegraph described the al-Asad airbase in Iraq:
…get “inside the wire” and this stretch of desert increasingly resembles a slice of US suburbia rather than the front line in a war zone.
Its restaurants include a Subway and a fast food pizza shop. There is a coffee shop, football pitch and even a swimming pool.
A cinema shows the latest films while the camp’s main recreational centre offers special dance nights — hip hop on Friday, salsa on Saturday and country and western on Sunday.
…
Last month, red “Stop” signs — the ubiquitous feature of American street furniture — went up at all road junctions.
Welcome to Americatown! (Via Kottke.)